


Names whispered, breath caught

by LivingOutLoud



Series: Your Name on My Skin [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 01:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6265024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LivingOutLoud/pseuds/LivingOutLoud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chekov and Bones meet in starfleet, and fate doesn't go how either of them thought it would. Edit: I've changed Bones' mark so Chekov's name is in the Russian alphabet. It makes more sense that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Names whispered, breath caught

**Author's Note:**

> A soulmate marks AU where everyone is born with the name of their Soulmates on them. This is a series of Chekov/McCoy oneshots exploring what would happen in a world where you know someone is meant to be your soulmate by their name alone, without knowing anything else about them, and how that stunts Chekov and McCoy’s relationship before it even begins, and the painfully slow journey it takes them to finally accept it. The one-shots will be self-contained snapshots of their changing relationship in chronological order.

It was Leonard McCoy’s first week on Starfleet campus, and he was already feeling tired and old and stupid. Everyone around him, including his only friend so far, Jim Kirk, were all at least five years younger than Len, and at least a hundred IQ points higher than him. When thinking about it, he was happy he did have a few years of running his own practice under his belt, because even if he’d been there right out of highschool, he probably would still be older than half the people, and he’d have been even stupider and less prepared than he was now. 

Not that he was crazy about the idea of being there at all, but it was his last option. After Jocelyn had met her soulmate and demanded a divorce, he hadn’t been particularly understanding, and he’d lost his daughter, his house, even his practice in the divorce proceedings. Looking back, he should have seen the divorce coming, Jocelyn was such a romantic, and such a perfectionist. A childhood sweetheart wasn’t good enough for her, not even a doctor. Not when she had a soulmate out there somewhere, their name branded on her skin. And how he’d dealt with the situation surely hadn’t helped matters.

He was dragging himself behind Jim on their way to their next class, a history of alien species class, one of the few all the cadets had to take regardless of their field of study. McCoy had a satchel over his shoulder with a PADD and an old fashioned notebook and pen, and was sipping from a cup of coffee as he walked. To be honest, he wasn’t big on these lecture room classes. As a practicing doctor, he got to skip a lot of the introductory classes, and his classes were more about hands-on practice with alien species and diseases found only in space. He had a few of these political or historical classes peppered in that he figured he could just scrape through. Jim found a seat near the front of the class, where he could be sure to make a show of himself, surely, and McCoy begrudgingly sat next to him, already expecting the class to be mostly Jim talking in his ear. Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t care much about the class if he was sharing it with Jim Kirk.

The student body chattered while they waited for the class to begin. McCoy was just checking his watch to see when things would begin when a flustered looking boy clamoured past him and Jim. He tried to squeeze between their seats and the line in front, and ran right into Jim’s long knees. The boy nearly dropped his books, spouting panicky “sorry, sorry,” in a thick Russian accent. McCoy lifted his coffee out of the way before the boy tipped that over, and shifted his knees out of the way as much as he could.

The boy finally sat himself down next to McCoy, setting a large backpack and several books down. He swept messy dark blonde curls out of his eyes and looked up at Jim and Bones with a huge grin and bright blue eyes. “Sorry, again. I thought I was late. I rushed here all the way from the astronomy building.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Jim said, smiling back. “I’m Jim Kirk, by the way.”

McCoy looked at the boy, he had to be too young to be in star fleet. He didn’t even look like he’d hit puberty yet.

“And I’m Leonard McCoy.” Bones said politely.

The boy looked like Bones had hit him. His mouth gaped open and his hand flew up to grip his chest. He locked eyes with McCoy, looking terrified. “I’m Pavel Chekov.” He whispered.

McCoy stopped breathing. He blinked at the child in front of him, praying he’d misheard him. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Then Jim leaned around Bones, unaware of the tension.

“Hey, you’re that Russian genius kid, aren’t you?”

Pavel looked startled, looking from Bones to Jim, back to Bones.

“Pavel Chekov, I heard about you. Youngest person ever accepted to Starfleet, right? How old are you?”

“No, I’m the second youngest,” Chekov stumbled. “I’m fourteen.”

McCoy’s eyes widened, he thought he might be sick. “You’re fourteen?”

“I know, right!” Jim said, missing the point, “You’ve gotta be some sort of smart, kid. I mean, I probably could have done that, but I was busy rebelling and getting arrested when I was fourteen. Still, good for you Pavel.”

The classroom began to grow quiet around them. McCoy looked up to see the professor walking up to the podium. He felt claustrophobic. He felt sick. McCoy took one last look at Pavel Chekov. He couldn’t sit next to the child for two whole hours. McCoy stood up in a rush, grabbing his bag and pushing past Kirk. 

“Bones, what are you doing?” Jim asked.

“Sorry, Jim, I’ve forgot something.” McCoy said, all but running down the aisle and out of the amphitheatre. 

Back in his and Jim’s shared dorm room, he first took a swig of bourbon, then he stood in front of the bathroom mirror and took his shirt off. The kid was fourteen, half his age. McCoy couldn’t think of a worse fate to be saddled with. He’d never even believed in them much, marrying Jocelyn because he loved her, their marks be damned. Then she found her soulmate and the whole divorce nightmare. He was just beginning to think maybe he’d be okay. Maybe it was a second chance, to find his soulmate. Now this. He held up his arm to look at the black marks on the inside of his left bicep, “Павел Андреевич Чехов”. His soulmark: the name that everyone was given at birth, connecting them to the one person in the world who would complete them. 

He traced the Russian writing on his skin which he'd memorized as a child, knowing it read “Pavel Andreievich Chekov”.


End file.
